Punjab reverts to good governance?

Pakistan's political scene has changed dramatically over the past few weeks. Rarely has there been the kind of public outrage that brings an otherwise recalcitrant regime to its knees. The judiciary thrown out for declaring 'illegal' the proclamation of emergency by the country's most repressive military dictator stands restored much to the chagrin of President Zardari. It was the 'People Power' which compelled Prime Minister Gilani to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other deposed judges through an executive order he issued hours after the commencement of the long march on Islamabad. Patience and confidence in an independent judiciary brought successes to the Sharif brothers with the Supreme Court staying their electoral disqualification that consequently restored the PML-N government in the Punjab. It was preceded by the lifting of Governor's Rule from the province a little over a month after its imposition on February 25. After all the political mess he has wrought it is time Mr Salman Taseer stepped down voluntarily and let democracy take root. The one month he ruled the province was marked with lawlessness and misgovernance. Terrorists got a free run to strike anywhere as and when they desired. Attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team near Liberty Market and the subsequent storming of the Police Training Centre at Manawan caught the police administration napping. The governor's handpicked bureaucracy spent half the time making arrangements for Jashn-e-Baharan and the rest in arm-twisting the political opponents. Perhaps with friends like Rana Aftab Ahmad and Qasim Zia, Mr Taseer needed no enemies. Every night they would depart from the Governor's House expecting some miracle to tilt the numbers game in their favour for forming a PPP government in the Punjab. But the next day would bring them more humiliation and cause more embarrassment to their leadership. Pity the poor duo. In the end it could walk back only with Laila Muqaddas in the tow. There are some clear winners and losers in the political crisis that raged on for about a month. The conflict left the PPP divided and disoriented. The judicial restoration of the Shahbaz government must have turned the governor's dream of making Lahore the Larkana of Punjab into a violent nightmare. But then Mr Taseer has only himself to blame for misleading the Party leadership by creating a hype about the PPP getting too close to the control of the Punjab without actually having done his homework. If Salman Taseer's appointment as Governor Punjab had once set off howls of protest from the Nawaz League, then more than a year down the line President Zardari might have had some regrets over carrying on Musharraf's extra baggage. The PPP today stands more fractious than it ever was at anytime in the past. Not just that it has lost all the hope of regaining the control of the Punjab it might also fear some of its members deserting the party. The less said about the Gujrati Chaudhrys, now collapsing under their own weight, the better. Now the winners. The PML-N, the legal fraternity, the civil society and the people of Pakistan have all emerged strong by bringing the movement launched for the restoration of judiciary to its logical conclusion. But the month that Mian Shahbaz Sharif was out of office turned out to be a blessing in disguise for him. So far his image has been that of a hard taskmaster who could bully the administration in order to make it improve the public delivery system apart from combating bureaucratic corruption and making the police force more accountable. But more than his tenacity he is now being perceived as a politician par excellence, with a firebrand charisma. His public addresses across the country had a spellbinding effect on the audience. Mian Shahbaz's debut at the public rallies turned him into a very determined and aggressive superstar. If he was unhappy it was not because he had been thrown out of power but because his unceremonious removal had dealt a serious blow to his unfinished agenda of ameliorating the plight of the poor and downtrodden. It actually hurt him to see all the development work started by him come to a grinding halt. Now that he is back into power he will have to start from scratch. And what is going to be critical for him will be to avoid getting bogged down with demands from Mian Ata Maneka and others of his ilk in return for their loyalty to the Sharifs. One cannot help but sympathise with Aamer Sultan Cheema for not getting any assistance from the government in hushing up his loan default case despite joining the Q-Forward Bloc. But can Mian Shahbaz keep the turncoats from coming in the way of his effort to establish good governance?